Sydney Sweeney Archives

Review: ‘Christy’ (2025), starring Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever and Katy O’Brian

November 5, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ben Foster (pictured at left) and Sydney Sweeney in “Christy” (Photo courtesy of Black Bear Pictures)

“Christy” (2025)

Directed by David Michôd

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, from 1989 to 2010, the dramatic film “Christy” (a biopic of American former boxing champ Christy Martin) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African American and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: While Martin was at the top of her career, she was also trapped in an abusive marriage to her coach/manager, and she became addicted to cocaine.

Culture Audience: “Christy” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Martin, the movie’s headliners and formulaic but well-acted celebrity biopics.

Ben Foster and Sydney Sweeney in “Christy” (Photo courtesy of Black Bear Pictures)

The choppy drama Christy is partly a boxing biopic and partly a true crime story about Christy Martin. It’s a showcase for the versatile acting talents of the cast members, but the narrative has some hokey stereotypes usually found in made-for-TV movies. The uneven pacing for the story (including a fairly abrupt ending) doesn’t ruin the movie, but it lowers the quality of the movie, which is a mixed bag of impactful moments and maudlin predictability.

Directed by David Michôd (who co-wrote the “Christy” screenplay with Mirrah Foulkes), “Christy” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie is a fairly ambitious project where Sydney Sweeney plays the role of Martin from when Martin was in her early 20s to when Martin was in her early 40s. Martin was born on June 12, 1968, in Mullens, West Virginia. Unfortunately, the mediocre hairstyling and makeup for “Christy” don’t make the aging process look believable for the Christy Martin character in the movie.

“Christy” viewers have to watch Sweeney wear several obvious wigs (many of them ill-fitting), while the movie’s makeup department didn’t do a very good job to realistically age the character. As Martin, Sweeney looks like she’s in her mid-to-late 20s for most of the movie. It’s a bit distracting for people who know that the story’s timeline is supposed to take place over a period of about 21 years.

“Christy” is told in chronological order, from 1989 to 2010. The movie has a captioned epilogue that mentions what happened in Martin’s life between 2010 and 2025, when the movie was released. For the purposes of this review, the real Christy Martin will be referred to by her last name, while the Christy Martin in the movie will be referred to by her first name.

“Christy” begins by showing with a voiceover of Christy saying, “Someone told me once that I fight like I was trying to destroy everyone who did me wrong … Maybe it’s true.” Christy, whose birth name was Christy Salters, is then shown at about age 21, when she was living in Itmann, West Virginia. At the time, Christy had a basketball scholarship at Concord College in West Virginia.

Christy proudly shows her brother Randy Salters (played by Coleman Pedigo) the $300 she recently won in a Tough Man boxing competition. “Easiest 300 bucks I ever made,” Christy brags. Randy is happy for Christy and proud of her athletic accomplishments. Their mother Joyce Salters (played by Merritt Wever) has the opposite reaction: She’s horrified that Christy has taken an interest in boxing.

Joyce is a religious conservative who’s also displeased about Christy being romantically involved with Christy’s basketball teammate Rosie (played by Jess Gabor) because Joyce firmly believes that homosexuality or queerness is a sin that can send people to hell. Christy and Rosie are mostly closeted in a relationship that no one fully acknowledges but it’s an open secret. (In real life, the Rosie character was Sherry Lusk, a basketball teammate whom Martin began dating when they were in high school.)

Joyce speaks softly, but she’s the domineering and controlling parent in the Salters household. Her husband Johnny Salters (played by Ethan Embry) is also a religious conservative, but he’s not as harsh, judgmental and image-conscious as Joyce is. However, Johnny almost always goes along with whatever Joyce wants.

During a family dinner, Joyce gives this order to Christy about Christy’s relationship with Rosie: “We don’t want you to see her anymore. What you’re doing is not normal. We want you to have a normal and happy life.” Joyce also suggests that Christy and Rosie get counseling from a priest as a way to convince Christy and Rosie to break up.

A conflicted and troubled Christy pours her energy into boxing and getting into other physical fights. At school, Christy gets into trouble for punching a basketball teammate who calls Christy a “fucking lesbian” while the team is having a practice session. Joyce discourages Christy from boxing because she thinks it isn’t ladylike and because women’s boxing was not considered a professional sport in the late 1980s.

However, Joyce starts to change her mind when a Bristol, Tennessee-based boxing promoter named Larry Carrier (played by Bill Kelly) takes an interest in paying Christy to box. Larry offers Christy an all-expenses-paid trip to Bristol to fight in a boxing match where the prize is $5,000. Christy easily wins the boxing match.

After this boxing match, Larry tells Christy that a boxing coach/manager named James “Jim” Martin (played by Ben Foster) wants to meet Christy at a later date. Rosie has accompanied Christy to Bristol. Larry notices how Christy and Rosie are together and quickly figures out that Christy and Rosie are both queer. Jim tells Christy that Christy’s mother needs to accompany Christy on the trip to meet Jim because Jim is a “family-oriented person.” Larry says it in a way so Christy knows that Jim is homophobic, and Jim won’t accept Christy being openly queer.

The first time that Christy meets Jim in a boxing gym, he’s standoffish and rude to her. He doesn’t take her seriously because Christy is a lot shorter than he thought she would be. And he hasn’t seen her fight yet. As a test, Jim has a male boxer do a mock boxing match with Christy. Jim quietly tells the male boxer to “hurt her” because Jim doesn’t want anything to do with Christy. You can easily predict what happens next: Christy ends up knocking out her male opponent.

The more Jim sees Christy box, the more he takes an interest in her and the type of money he can make from her boxing talent. Jim, who is 25 years older than Christy, charms Joyce by giving the impression that he will be a protective and conservative father figure to Christy. Jim convinces Christy to live with him in Bristol while he becomes her coach and her manager. Around the same time, Rosie and Christy drift apart because Rosie stays in West Virginia and begins dating a man.

Jim orders Christy to grow her hair and wear pink boxing outfits, so she looks more “feminine.” It isn’t long before Jim abuses his authority and power over Christy and gets sexually involved with her. By 1991, Jim and Christy are married because he convinces her that he’s the only one who can make her a rich and famous boxing champion. Jim tells Christy that it would be easier to achieve that goal if they were married.

“Christy” then goes through the usual motions showing the “rise, fall, and rise again” story arc that is typical in most celebrity biopics. Christy wins most of her boxing matches and becomes America’s first famous female professional boxer. Jim and Christy eventually move to Florida and settle in the city of Apopka.

The movie is more about how Christy became a boxing champion in spite of Jim, not because of him. Jim is hateful, abusive and controlling in all the worst ways. It also comes as no surprise when the movie shows he was also stealing money from Christy.

There are some lurid aspects to this story, such as when Jim forces Christy to do homemade porn videos, which he uses to blackmail her. The movie also hints that Jim became Christy’s pimp who would sell her to male fans who wanted to do erotic boxing and other sexual activities with her. There’s nothing too explicit in the movie, but there’s enough in the movie for viewers to figure out that it happened.

Christy and Jim’s toxic marriage is also plagued by their cocaine addiction. The movie depicts her account that Jim was the one who introduced her to cocaine and encouraged her to heavily use the drug. And as this dysfunctional marriage continues, the abuse gets worse, until it spirals out of control on the night of November 23, 2010. Even though what happened that night made big news that led to an arrest and trial, this review won’t say what happened, in case “Christy” viewers who don’t know the details might want to see the movie to find out.

Once the “Christy” biopic takes a turn into the true crime aspect of her life, it becomes somewhat like a Lifetime movie, with a very rushed ending where the victim’s recovery is presented as too quick to be an entirely accurate depiction of what happened in real life. However, Foster’s portrayal of the evil and creepy Jim is very unsettling and apparently so realistic, the real Christy Martin said she couldn’t be on the “Christy” film set when Foster was there because his depiction was so similar to the real person. (The real Christy Martin has a cameo in the film, as a hallway bystander who wishes Christy good luck on the way to a boxing match.)

Sweeney’s portrayal of Christy has a lot of grit and effective emotional moments. The boxing matches and the training are shown as “checklist” events in her life, rather than immersive cinematic experiences. Because Christy wins so many of her matches (often by knockouts), the movie’s only real suspense in her fights is for a 2003 boxing match when Christy fights Laila Ali (played by Naomi Graham), who is younger, taller and physically stronger than Christy. It’s the only boxing match in the movie where Christy genuinely is afraid and reluctant, but Jim pushes her into it because they need the money.

The boxing matches in the movie are adequately filmed. However, “Christy” is not convincing that Christy has changed much physically during the more than 20 years that this story takes place. And that’s a problem for a movie about a boxer who’s supposed to go from her early 20s to her early 40s in the story.

Sweeney’s performance is skilled at showing emotions but not very skilled in showing the natural maturity that takes place when most people evolve from their 20s to 40s. Even if Christy has some arrested development in her maturity, she was undoubtedly changed physically and emotionally because of her drug addiction, the abuse she got from her husband, and the effects of her long boxing career. However, the movie makes Christy look like she’s physically and emotionally stuck in her mid-to-late 20s. The movie could have also taken a more realistic approach in how Christy’s boxing injuries affected her.

An early scene in “Christy” is an example of the movie’s uneven filmmaking. Christy and Jim meet with notoriously flamboyant boxing promoter Don King (played by a scene-stealing Chad L. Coleman) when Christy is still an unknown boxer. Jim brings a VHS cassette tape to show some highlights of Christy’s boxing matches, but the tape doesn’t work on the VCR in Don’s office. It’s a very sitcom-type moment because the scene—especially Coleman’s performance—is played for laughs. The scene, although well-acted, sticks out like a sore thumb in this very serious movie.

Christy is able to convince Don to sign her, just by doing a few mock boxing jabs in his office. And he comes up with the idea to give her the nickname the Coal Miner’s Daughter (inspired by Loretta Lynn’s 1971 “Coal Miner’s Daughter” hit song) when Don finds out that Christy’s father really was a coal miner. It’s understandable why a movie would condense all of this in one meeting, but it all looks so fake in the way that this scene is written.

However, “Christy” does a good job of showing how someone can feel trapped in an abusive relationship, especially if the abuser has a lot of power over the abused person and isolates the abused person from loved ones. Years into the marriage, Christy asks her mother for help to get away from Jim, but her mother “gaslights” Christy by saying Christy is the problem in the marriage. Jim manipulates Joyce by convincing Joyce that Christy has become a flaky and pathological liar because Christy has a drug addiction.

Christy’s only true confidantes in the movie are Rosie (who is in and out of Christy’s life) and a boxer named Lisa Holewyne (played by Katy O’Brian), who lost to Christy in one of their high-profile boxing matches. Lisa, who is openly a lesbian, is there for Christy during the lowest point in Christy’s life. O’Brian gives a good performance, but there’s not enough shown or told about Lisa for her to be a well-rounded character in the movie.

“Christy” gives a general overview of Christy’s career and personal life in the way that a biopic tends to do when it’s limited to telling the story in a time frame that’s less than three hours. (“Christy” clocks in at 135 minutes.) The movie doesn’t give enough information about who else knew about Jim’s abuse at the time that it was happening.

Very little is depicted about how the business of women’s professional boxing evolved from the 1990s to the 2010s. There’s a scene where Christy fakes being a heavier weight by putting a lot of coins in her pockets, in her shoes, and in her underwear before she gets weighed, so that she can qualify for a boxing match for a heavier weight class. It’s hard to imagine any professional boxer being able to get away with that trick nowadays.

Because the real Christy Martin has a memoir (2022’s “Fighting for Survival: My Journey Through Boxing Fame, Abuse, Murder, and Resurrection”) and a 2021 documentary (Netflix’s “Untold: Deal With the Devil”), people who are familiar with both of these non-fiction projects will know that “Christy” leaves out a lot of information that could’ve been in the movie. (For example, the “Christy” movie doesn’t mention that Christy has gone public about being sexually abused as a child, and Jim’s longtime abuses were much worse than what’s shown in the movie.) “Christy” is worthwhile as a story of inspirational empowerment. But as a biopic, it falls a little bit on the shallow side that’s held afloat by good performances.

Black Bear Pictures will release “Christy” in U.S. cinemas on November 7, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2025.

Review: ‘Eden’ (2025), starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney, Toby Wallace and Felix Kammerer

August 29, 2025

by Carla Hay

Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby in “Eden” (Photo by Jasin Boland/Vertical)

“Eden” (2025)

Directed by Ron Howard

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1929 to 1934, on the Galapagos island of Floreana in Ecuador, the dramatic film “Eden” (based on real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one Latin person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Several settlers on the remote island of Floreana have various conflicts with each other, which get worse as food resources become scarce.

Culture Audience: “Eden” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and filmmaker Ron Howard, and are interested in dramas based on true stories, but this movie is disappointing and mostly dull.

Felix Kammerer, Ana de Armas and Toby Wallace in “Eden” (Photo by Jasin Boland/Vertical)

Watching the shallow historical drama “Eden” is like being stuck on a miserable island with pretentious and/or predatory people. Although the characters are based on real people, most of “Eden’s” cast members have obvious fake accents. That’s not the only problem with “Eden.” A story that should be mostly suspenseful is instead mostly sluggish, with a clumsily handled showdown crammed in toward the end.

Directed by Ron Howard and written by Noah Pink, “Eden” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie takes place from 1929 to 1934, on the remote Galapagos island of Floreana in Ecuador. “Eden” is a dramatic version of real events, but the dialogue and direction make it look like a slightly pompous soap opera.

“Eden” (formerly titled “Origin of Species”) is told in chronological order and begins with a caption stating that in the year 1929: “The world economy has collapsed in the wake of World War I. Fascism is spreading. People are desperate for a way out.”

A German botanist named Dr. Friedrich Ritter (played by Jude Law) and his lover Dore Strauch (played by Vanessa Kirby) have relocated to Floreana to isolate themselves and to live in their own version of utopia. Dore has multiple sclerosis that has made one of her legs disabled. Friedrich has convinced Dore that living on the island can cure her multiple sclerosis. This unrealistic medical prediction is one of many indications of how out-of-touch Friederich is.

The caption in the beginning of the movie further states: “The world learns of Ritter’s isolated existence through his letters, picked up by the rare passing vessel. Ritter’s mission: to write a radical new philosophy that will save humanity from itself.”

Friedrich, who is atheist, is often seen typing letters that have his rambling anti-government philosophies. For example, Friedrich says in one of his rants: “Democracy leads to fascism, which leads to war.” The movie often shows Friedrich talking out loud to himself as he writes pretentious drivel such as, “What is the true meaning of life? Pain. In pain, we find truth. And in truth, salvation.”

For someone who wants to be “left alone,” Friedrich as a hypocritical way of showing it. Allowing his letters to be picked up by passing vessels is an indication that he definitely wants attention from the “outside world.” By the time the story begins in “Eden,” Friedrich’s letters have gotten media exposure, and he has become somewhat of a cult folk hero for disillusioned people who want better lives for themselves.

Not surprisingly, some people who know about Friedrich and his island existence have sought him out on Floreana. Two of these devotees are a married German couple named Heinz Wittmer (played by Daniel Brühl) and Margret Wittmer (played by Sydney Sweeney), who have sold all of their belongings to relocate to Floreana. The Wittmers hope to learn more about utopian living from Friedrich.

Heinz and Margret have moved to Floreana with Heinz’s son/Margret’s stepson Harry Wittmer (played by Jonathan Tittlel), who is 14 years old. Harry’s deceased mother was Heinz’s first wife. Soon after arriving at the island, Margret tells Heinz that she’s about three months pregnant.

Margret can be heard in voiceovers reading letters that she has written to her unnamed mother, who is never seen in the movie. Based on these letters, Margret’s mother seems to be stern and judgmental, because Margret gives an apologetic explanation for why Margret has radically changed her life by moving to Floreana: “I’m sorry for leaving without saying goodbye, but I cannot handle another lecture about marrying a man broken by the war. I am simply doing what you always taught me: supporting my husband.”

Friedrich’s voiceovers and Margret’s voiceovers somewhat clutter up the movie. Over time, these narrative choices for the film become more apparent because Friedrich and Margret (who’s a lot tougher than she looks) are the “alpha” partners in their respective relationships. However, these voiceovers don’t offer much substance to the overall movie because the depictions of these main characters are still very superficial.

Friedrich and Dore are standoffish to the Wittmers when the Wittmers first arrive on the island. Dore is especially skeptical that the Wittmers won’t be able to adjust well to the Foreana’s rough terrain. Food can become scarce. People on the island often have to deal with some of the island’s wild animals (such as packs of feral dogs) that want the same food. Floreana is also a tropical island that has deadly creatures, such as poisonous snakes.

Before moving to Floreana, Heinz was a personal secretary to the mayor of Cologne, Germany. Considering that Friedrich despises bureaucracy, you can easily predict his contempt for Heinz. Friedrich’s animosity toward Heinz grows even more when Heinz proves to be a better farmer than Friedrich.

However, the Wittmers definitely have difficulty adjusting to their new environment at first. Friedrich and Dore have an attitude that the Wittmers need to fend for themselves. There’s a scene were Dore coldly makes this comment about the Wittmers to Friedrich: “They’re clearly suffering.” And then, in the next sentence she abruptly says to Friedrich: “Shall we fuck?” It’s an example of the movie’s awful dialogue.

The island gets more residents with the unwelcome arrival of a seductive diva who loves to be the center of attention. She calls herself “Baroness” Eloise von Wagner-Bousquet (played by Ana de Armas), who has a murky background but clams to be a wealthy royal from Europe. It’s implied that the Baroness is a con artist with a phony identity.

The Baroness is accompanied by her two lovers, whom she treats like servants: Robert Phillipson (played by Toby Wallace) is an extrovert. Rudolph “Rudy” Lorenz (played by Felix Kammerer) is an introvert. The Baroness is a manipulator who likes to make Robert and Rudy compete for her affections and attention. She’s also very high-maintenance and expects to always have the best possible food on the island, even if Robert and Rudy have to steal from their neighbors.

The Baroness and Margret clash with each other because they are complete opposites. Margret is offended by Baroness’ bawdy talk and indiscreet expression of sexuality. The Baroness has a dog named after the notorious sexual sadist Marquis de Sade. Margret is the type of person who gets upset just by seeing adults naked.

Most of “Eden” is about how all of these people have a very uncomfortable existence on the island. Jealousies, resentments, hunger and greed all get mixed into an emotional cauldron that reaches an exploding point. Friedrich isn’t the only delusional egomaniac on the island. The Baroness talks about her big plans to build a luxury resort on Floreana. It’s an idea that Friedrich and Dore obviously hate.

Unfortunately, “Eden” is a display of bad and unconvincing accents by many of the cast members. The worst offender is de Armas, whose stilted delivery is too affected, even if she’s portraying a con artist. Sweeney’s German accent isn’t consistent, although she does make the necessary effort to depict her Margret character as more interesting than Margret first appears to be.

Law gives a compelling performance as the brooding and sulking Friedrich, but like most of the “Eden” characters, there’s not much depth to Friedrich’s personality. Brühl (one of the few “Eden” cast members who is of German heritage in real life) doesn’t have an accent problem, but his character is written as too bland. Kirby doesn’t have much that she can do to give inscrutable and moody Dore any charisma because Dore is ultimately living in the shadow of Friedrich.

“Eden” stumbles by mishandling the irony of how Friedrich, who hates bureaucracy and rules, wants be the leader of this motley community, and he expects others to follow his unwritten rules. Instead, there are disjointed scenes that are meant to be provocative, but the impact is diluted by cringeworthy conversations or performances that look too manufactured. And there’s a childbirth scene in the movie that looks utterly fake.

One of the worst aspects of the movie is how unrealistic the costume design looks for characters who are supposed to be living on a remote island for a long period of time. The island doesn’t have laundry service or beauty salons, but you’d never know it from how polished everyone and their clothes look. Dore’s slightly messy hair is about the only thing that comes closest to what realistic hygiene would look like on a remote island with no basic amenities. A big part of the story is about the characters experiencing starvation because of the island’s food shortages, yet all the characters in the movie look very well-nourished.

“Eden” goes around in circles with repetitive fighting and betrayals until the inevitable descent into mayhem where not everyone gets out alive. By the time the movie comes to its messily contrived end, viewers will feel like “Eden” is an empty exercise that didn’t tell enough about the real people involved. For a more meaningful account of the real story, watch the documentary “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,” which was released in 2014, and directed by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller.

Vertical released “Eden” in U.S. cinemas on August 22, 2025.

Review: ‘Americana’ (2025), starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey

August 20, 2025

by Carla Hay

Paul Walter Hauser, Sydney Sweeney and Halsey in “Americana” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Americana” (2025)

Directed by Tony Tost

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Dakota and in Wyoming, the comedy/drama film “Americana” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Native Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Several people become entangled in a violent power struggle to own a valuable Lakota ghost shirt.

Culture Audience: “Americana” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and 21st century Westerns that mix violent action with serious drama and absurdist comedy.

Gavin Maddox Bergman and Zahn McClarnon in “Americana” (Photo by Ursula Coyote/Courtesy of Lionsgate)

If 1994’s “Pulp Fiction” and 1996’s “Fargo were put in a blender and fermented in South Dakota and Wyoming, it would be the lumpy comedy/drama “Americana.” Halsey stands out in this erratic story about people fighting over a Lakota ghost shirt. “American” is very derivative in some ways but has enough unique elements and engaging performances to be watchable for people who don’t mind seeing an uneven Western with a second half that’s better than the first half.

Written and directed by Tony Tost, “Americana” is his feature-film directorial debut and had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival. The movie (which was filmed in New Mexico) is told in five chapters, with events shown in non-chronological order in the first half of the movie. “Americana” features a group of characters, most of whom are strangers to each other, who become entangled in each other’s lives—for better or for worse.

It takes a while before “Americana” find its best groove because the characters start off being very one-dimensional. The movie begins in an unnamed small town in South Dakota, where Amanda “Mandy” Starr (played by Halsey) is living in a trailer with pre-teen Calvin “Cal” Starr (played by Gavin Maddox Bergman), who’s about 9 or 10 years old. Cal is an eccentric child who is being raised as Mandy’s brother. Also living in the trailer is Mandy’s abusive boyfriend Dillon MacIntosh (played by Eric Dane), who complains in the first scene that Cal is living with them.

Dillon (who’s about 20 years older than Mandy) owns the trailer and car that he and Mandy are using. It’s the first indication that Mandy has fallen on hard times and is financially dependent on Dillon. Cal is fixated on pretending that he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota chief who died in 1890 and led a resistance against U.S. government policies that were harmful to Native Americans.

Cal never wavers from acting as if he’s Sitting Bull. Why is Cal having an identity crisis? The answer is revealed later in the movie, which implies that Cal knows a secret that other people don’t want him to know.

Cal is outside when Mandy suddenly runs out of the trailer and tells Cal that they have to leave immediately. She says Dillon is unconscious because she smashed his head with a weapon. (A flashback scene later reveals that Mandy used a hammer for this attack.) Mandy is fleeing the scene by taking Dillon’s car.

Cal refuses to leave because, as Sitting Bull, he says his land is here. Mandy is in a frustrated panic and is in a rush to leave, with or without Cal. When she sees that Cal won’t leave with her, she tells him to go to the Whitleys’ house nearby because the Whitleys can take care of Cal. It’s presumed that the Whitleys are neighbors who know Mandy and Cal. Mandy then speeds away and leaves Cal to fend for himself.

“Americana” then shows the rest of the characters who make up this tangled web. Lefty Ledbetter (played by Paul Walter Hauser), who is actually right-handed, is a socially awkward and lovelorn military veteran who wants to find a nice woman to marry. He “falls in love” very quickly and his marriage proposals get rejected. How quickly does Lefty fall in love”?

In one of the movie’s first scenes with Lefty, he asks a woman named Brittany Gable (played by Austin Boyce) to marry him after they’ve been dating each other for two weeks. Brittany says no because even though she thinks Lefty is a nice guy, they don’t know each other well. Brittany immediately breaks up with Lefty after he proposes.

Lefty is a regular customer at George’s 50s Diner, where Penny Jo (played by Sydney Sweeney) is a server. Penny Jo is shy and sweet. She’s an aspiring singer whose idol is Dolly Parton. Penny Jo’s dream is to move to Nashville to become a country music singer, but she doesn’t have the money and she’s self-conscious about her speech impediment that often makes it hard for her to form words in a sentence.

Lefty and Penny Jo become platonic friends because they both feel like misfits in this world and haven’t had much luck when it comes to dating. Even though Penny Jo is physically attractive and gets attention from men, she is very introverted and seems to be afraid of having an active social life. Penny Jo lives with her strict and cranky grandmother Tish Poplin (played by Harriet Sansom Harris), who scolds Penny Jo for playing the guitar at night in Penny Jo’s bedroom. Tish thinks Penny Jo is foolish for wanting to be a country music star and discourages Penny Jo from pursuing this dream.

One day at the diner, Penny Jo observes three customers who are seated at the same table for a meeting. It’s a flashback scene showing Dillon, his younger crony Reggie Dale (played by Jasper Keen) and a museum owner named Roy Lee Dean (played by Simon Rex), as they concoct a scheme to steal a rare Lakota ghost shirt from a wealthy artifact collector named Pendleton Duvall (played by Toby Huss), who lives in South Dakota. Various people name prices of what they’d be willing to pay for in the sale of the shirt. Roy, for example, is willing to pay $500,000 for it so he could possibly resell it on the black market.

Some other people want the shirt for different reasons. The Red Thunder Society, which is described by its members as a Lakota Nation version of the Blank Panthers, also wants possession of the shirt, which was originally stolen from the Lakota Nation many years ago. Red Thunder Society leader Ghost Eye (played by Zahn McClarnon) and his main sidekick Hank Spears (played by Derek Hinkey) have prominent roles in the story.

It’s enough to say that the ghost shirt is stolen from Pendleton. And several people try to gain possession of the shirt, with deadly consequences. At one point in the movie, a desperate Mandy goes back to her family’s home in rural Wyoming. It’s revealed that she’s the prodigal daughter of a very religious clan led by Mandy’s father Hiram Starr (played by Christopher Kriesa), a racist and sexist patriarch who expects the women in the family to act and dress like farm women who live in the 1820s, not the 2020s.

Also living in the oppressive Starr household are Mandy’s mother/Hiram’s wife Grace Starr (played by Augusta Allen-Jones) and Mandy’s sisters Abigail Starr (played by Rhiannon Frazier), Florence Starr (played by Kenzie Shea Ross) and Calliope Starr (played by Emily Perry), whose ages range from late teens to early 20s. It’s during this tension-filled family reunion that Halsey has her best scenes, as the character of Mandy is revealed to be more than the self-centered rebel than she first appears to be.

Of course, not everyone will make it out alive when the inevitable gunfight showdown occurs. The trailer for “Americana” already reveals a lot about the movie that should have been left out of the trailer and left to be surprises for people who watch “Americana” for the first time. However, there are some worthwhile parts of the movie that aren’t in the trailer.

Because Mandy is the most complex character in “Americana,” the movie showcases Halsey’s impressive acting range, as she becomes the scene-scene star of the show. Not so great are the movie’s cheap-looking wigs that look like they’re from 1981: Sometimes, Mandy’s hair looks like she’s a Joan Jett wannabe. Other times, Mandy’s hair looks like Paul Stanley from Kiss.

Sweeney puts in a good performance as the stammering Penny Jo, who becomes more confident as the story goes along. However, you never forget that Sweeney is acting, whereas Halsey’s performance is more natural. Although “Americana” is marketed around Sweeney’s image and the Penny Jo character, Mandy has the most interesting story and is the real leading character.

All of the other well-known cast members in “Americana” are perfectly adequate in their roles but have played these types of characters many times before on screen: Hauser as the sad-sack outsider, Dane as the nasty criminal, Rex as a sleazy hustling/con man type. It doesn’t help that he characters of Lefty, Dane and Rex are underdeveloped. By the end of the movie, you still won’t know much about these characters outside of how they got mixed up in wanting the ghost shirt.

“Americana” gets a little awkward when it tries to bludgeon viewers over the head with messaging about anti-colonialism and pro-feminism. Cal’s impersonation of Sitting Bull is meant to be a symbol of misguided cultural appropriation, but sometimes the tone of Cal’s scenes are a little too preachy to drive the message home with the intended satirical edge that they need. Similarly, there’s a shootout scene where a man scoffs at the idea of a woman using a gun. And as soon as he makes this derogatory remark, you know what’s going to happen to him.

“Americana” isn’t as witty or funny as it could have been. Some of the characters could have been written better. But if viewers are patient enough to watch the movie past the halfway mark, the story improves and becomes more intriguing. The ending of “Americana” might seem like a tonal mismatch, but it should be satisfying for anyone who’s looking for some humanity amid the carnage and the chaos.

Lionsgate released “Americana” in U.S. cinemas on August 15, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on September 16, 2025. “Americana” will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Immaculate’ (2024), starring Sydney Sweeney

March 19, 2024

by Carla Hay

Sydney Sweeney in “Immaculate” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Immaculate” (2024)

Directed by Michael Mohan

Some language in Italian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy, the horror film “Immaculate” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class and working-class, with most of the characters as clergy from the Catholic Church.

Culture Clash: A young nun joins a convent, where she has nightmarish visions and finds out that she has mysteriously become pregnant.

Culture Audience: “Immaculate” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Sydney Sweeney and horror movies about nuns.

A scene from “Immaculate” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Immaculate” has no real surprises, but this horror movie about a pregnant nun delivers plenty of creepy suspense with some campiness. Sydney Sweeney’s committed performance and an intense ending are worth watching. The movie’s bloody gore goes where the lackluster “The Nun” movies are too tame to go. Sweeney is one of the producers of “Immaculate.”

Directed by Michael Mohan and written by Andrew Lobel, “Immaculate” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. It’s an uncomplicated story about a young American nun named Sister Cecilia (played by Sweeney), who experiences horror at a Catholic convent called Our Lady of Sorrows in an unnamed rural area in Italy. The beginning of the movie shows Sister Cecilia arriving to take her final nun vows and live permanently at the convent. Viewers know that there’s something very wrong with this convent, because the opening scene shows a young nun trying to escape from the convent, but she is murdered by other nuns, who are wearing sinister veils over their faces.

The convent has a stereotypical stern Mother Superior (played by Dora Romano) and a patriarchal leader of the adjoining church: Cardinal Franco Merola (played by Giorgio Colangeli), who officiates the ceremony where Sister Cecilia takes her vows. He is also the clergyman who listens to the nuns’ confessions. Another associate of Our Lady of Sorrows is Father Sal Tedeschi (played by Álvaro Morte), who recruited Cecilia to the convent after her previous convent in the United States shut down due to low attendance for the church affiliated with the convent.

As soon as Father Sal tells Sister Cecilia that he had a scientific background in biology before he became priest, you can easily predict what the convent’s big secret is when virgin Sister Cecilia finds out she’s pregnant after undergoing an admittance medical exam at the convent. This admittance exam is not shown in the movie, but the movie shows the follow-up exam where Sister Cecilia is told that she is pregnant. Our Lady of Sorrows has an in-house medical professional named Doctor Gallo (played by Giampiero Judica), who works in a secretive room that looks more like a science lab than a regular doctor’s office.

Sister Cecilia, who is originally from the Detroit area, has a troubled past that is vaguely hinted at in the movie. She is plagued by nightmares and hellish visions as soon as she stays at the convent. One of her nightmares is a memory of when she was a child and had a near-death experience when she accidentally fell through an icy body of water and nearly drowned.

Sister Cecilia befriends another nun named Sister Guendalina, also known as Sister Gwen (played by Benedetta Porcaroli), who is the convent’s resident rebel. Sister Gwen tells Sister Cecilia that the several young nuns who are at the convent were recruited because they are “head cases or runaways.” Sister Cecilia asks Sister Gwen which category describes Sister Gwen. “Both,” Sister Gwen replies with a slight smirk. Another young nun at the convent is Sister Isabelle (played by Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi), who is standoffish and rude to Sister Cecilia.

“Immaculate” goes through some predictable motions of Sister Cecilia experiencing abuse and more terror at the convent. The movie has above-average cinematography and production design, which greatly enhance the sinister atmosphere. Of course, the main reason people will keep watching “Immaculate” is to find out what will happen if or when Sister Cecilia gives birth. It all leads to a memorable and terrifying series of events that make up for some of the occasional tediousness in the rest of the film.

Neon will release “Immaculate” in U.S. cinemas on March 22, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on April 16, 2024. “Immaculate” will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on June 11, 2024.

Review: ‘Madame Web,’ starring Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Tahar Rahim, Emma Roberts and Adam Scott

February 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Madame Web”

Directed by SJ Clarkson

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2003 (with brief flashbacks to 1973), in New York City and in the Amazon jungle of Peru, the superhero action film “Madame Web” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) portraying superheroes and regular human beings.

Culture Clash: A fire-department paramedic, who grew up as an orphan, finds out that she has spider-related psychic abilities that came from her mother’s mysterious death, and she helps protect three teenage girls who are being hunted by the man who killed her mother.

Culture Audience: “Madame Web” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Dakota Johnson and movies based on Marvel Comics, but the movie is an idiotic mess, by any standard of bad superhero movies.

Tahar Rahim (center) in “Madame Web” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)

“Madame Web” and “The Marvels” are the “Dumb and Dumber” of female-led Marvel Comics superhero movies. After the triumphs of “Black Widow” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” it’s a travesty that “Madame Web” is a low point in wannabe feminist superhero films. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of “Madame Web” is that it is an unintentional comedy, because there is so much idiotic filmmaking on display, it’s laughable. Other people who won’t find it so funny will be cringing at “Madame Web,” which is an embarrassment for everyone involved in making this brain-dead film.

Directed by SJ Clarkson, “Madame Web” was co-written by Clarkson, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless and Claire Parker. “Madame Web” will get inevitable comparisons to 2023’s “The Marvels” because these two flops are obvious attempts to build a franchise around two separate groups of female superheroes. (See 2021’s “Black Widow” and 2022’s “Black Panther Wakanda Forever” for Marvel Comics-based, female-led superhero movies that are done right.) Whereas the story in “The Marvels” was overly ambitious and got tangled up in doing too many things in too many places, “Madame Web” tries to keep the story simple, but in doing so just exposes even more rapidly that it’s a mind-numbing, stupid mess.

“Madame Web” begins in 1973, in the Amazon jungles of Peru. An American scientist named Constance Webb (played by Kerry Bishé) is looking for a rare spider that has the potential to cure hundreds of diseases. Accompanying her on this expedition is an American named Ezekiel Sims (played by Tahar Rahim), whom Constance has hired to be her guide. Constance also happens to be about eight or nine months pregnant.

Ezekiel is over-eager for Constance to find this spider. His impatience should’ve been a big red flag to Constance that Ezekiel has ulterior motives. However, Constance is too preoccupied with finding this spider to notice. When she does find the spider, Ezekiel shoots her, steals the spider, and runs away.

Constance doesn’t die immedately. She is unconscious when she is saved by two tree-crawling and tree-hopping “spider men” of Peru (who basically look like acrobats with painted red skin), who bring her to a swampy area, put a spider on her chest, and deliver Constance’s baby, which is a girl. The spider on Constance’s chest was no ordinary spider. It bit Constance before the baby was delivered, so whatever type of venom the spider had has now been transferred into the blood of the baby.

Constance doesn’t survive, but her baby does, and the baby does not cry at all after being born. One of the Peruvian jungle dwellers who delivered the baby is named Santiago (played by José María Yazpik), who states solemnly to this newborn that she will eventually come back to this jungle to find him for answers to her questions. And when she does, Santiago adds, “I will be here for her.”

The movie then fast-forwards to 2003 in New York City. Constance’s baby is now a jaded 30-year-old bachelorette named Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (played by Dakota Johnson), who works as a paramedic for the Fire Department of New York. It’s mentioned in the movie that Cassie grew up as an orphan in the foster care system. Her biological father is never mentioned in the movie.

Cassie’s best friend is her paramedic co-worker Ben Parker (played by Adam Scott), who is also never-married with no children. Cassie and Ben, as they announce during their dull dialogue, don’t like the idea of “the family thing,” although Ben has been recently dating a special woman, and the relationship is getting serious. Ben won’t share any details about this relationship with Cassie, probably because he knows that bitter spinster Cassie will be jealous.

How do we know that Cassie is bitter about family love? When she saves a woman from a car accident and is at the hospital, the woman’s son (who’s about 8 or 9 years old) gives her a drawing that he made as a gift for saving his mother’s life. Cassie coldly asks Ben what she’s supposed to do with this gift since she doesn’t want it. Ben tells her she should just throw it in the garbage when the kid isn’t there.

It isn’t long before Cassie finds out that she has psychic abilities where she can see events that happen in the future. She discovers this clairvoyance after falling into the Atlantic Ocean while rescuing a man trapped in a car near a bridge. Ben rescues Cassie in a very sloppily staged scene, which is when she first finds out that she can see into the future.

Mike Epps has a very small and brief role as a paramedic supervisor named O’Neil, whose fate does not come as a surprise, since his character wasn’t useful to the overall story. Emma Roberts has a supporting role as Mary Parker, the pregnant wife of Ben’s brother Richard, who is never seen in the movie because he’s away working in Mumbai. Mary is eight months pregnant, and her pregnancy is used for exactly what you think it will be used for in a “race against” time scene later in the movie.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel (who is some type of scientist) was bitten by the spider that he stole, so now he has the ability to poison people just by touching them and holding them long enough. (Don’t ask.) After meeting an opera concertgoer whom he took home for a one-night stand, Ezekiel wakes up from a cold-sweat nightmare and tells her that he keeps dreaming of three teenage girls who want to kill him. His nightmarish visions show that all three girls are dressed as spider superheroes.

Ezekiel enlists the help of a technology expert named Amaria (played by Zosia Mamet) to find these three teenagers, because (as Ezekiel hilariously announces repeatedly in the movie), he wants to kill them before they can kill him. Amaria is only seen working for Ezekiel in a room with hi-tech equipment, such as surveillance cameras that are apparently everywhere in the New York City area.

“Their faces have been taunting me for years,” Ezekiel comments to Amaria about these teen tormenters. “Find them, and I’ll pay you a fortune.” Ezekiel tells Amaria several times that he will kill her if she doesn’t do what he wants. It’s later mentioned in the movie that Ezekiel thinks he’s going to be killed because he was cursed for stealing the spider.

The identities of the three teenagers are Julia Cornwall (played by Sydney Sweeney), a nervous people-pleaser; Mattie Franklin (played by Celeste O’Connor), a rebellious rich kid; and Anya Corazon (played by Isabela Merced), a level-headed undocumented immigrant. All three have encountered Cassie before they formally meet. Julia’s stepmother was a patient rescued earlier in the movie by Cassie, and Julia saw Cassie at the hospital. While skateboarding on a busy street, Mattie was nearly hit by a paramedic ambulance that Cassie had been driving on the way to the accident. Anya lives in the same apartment building as Cassie.

The rest of “Madame Web” is one ridiculous scenario after another where Casse tries to save Julia, Mattie and Anya from being murdered by Ezekiel, because Cassie had a psychic vision that it would happen when all them are on the same train. By rescuing these three teens and putting them in the woods to hide them, Cassie becomes a kidnapping suspect. Cassie spends much of the movie acting like a stern boarding school headmistress to these confused and bickering teenagers.

The acting in “Madame Webb” ranges from mediocre to bad, with Rahim’s stiff performance being the worst. Rahim’s wooden acting and questionable American accent (he’s French in real life) further sink the quality of this already low-quality superhero movie. The action sequences are flashy but empty. And don’t bother sticking around for a mid-credits or end-credits scene, because there is none.

The movie’s soundtrack choices sound like the filmmakers were thinking, “What songs would feminists and teenage girls be listening to in 2003?” The answer, according to “Madame Web”: Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch” and Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” The movie’s very “on the nose” soundtrack is in stark contrast to the rest of “Madame Webb,” which misses the mark in almost every single way.

Columbia Pictures will release “Madame Web” in U.S. cinemas on February14, 2024.

Review: ‘Anyone But You’ (2023), starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell

December 28, 2023

by Carla Hay

Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in “Anyone But You” (Photo by Brook Rushton/Columbia Pictures)

“Anyone But You” (2023)

Directed by Will Gluck

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city and in Sydney, Australia, the comedy film “Anyone But You” (loosely based on the William Shakespeare play “Much Ado About Nothing”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, a few Asians and one indgenous person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After have a great first date together, a young would-be couple have angry feelings toward each other because of misunderstandings, but then they pretend to be a couple to make their respective ex-lovers jealous.

Culture Audience: “Anyone But You” will appeal primarily to fans of stars Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell, and corny and predictable romantic comedies.

When will certain filmmakers learn that pretty people in pretty locations do not automatically equal an enjoyable romantic comedy? William Shakespeare would cringe in embarrassment if he saw this lousy interpretation of “Much Ado About Nothing.” There isn’t anything creative, surprising or truly entertaining about “Anyone But You,” which is an example of a lazy rom com coasting by on some of the most overused clichés in romantic comedies.

Directed by Will Gluck (who co-wrote the trite and hollow “Anyone But You” screenplay with Ilana Wolpert), “Anyone But You” has a mostly talented cast stuck in roles that make most of their characters in the movie look like immature dolts. Adults who are in their 20s and 30s act more like teenagers who are inexperienced in dating. And the middle-aged parents in the story are nothing but shallow rom-com stereotypes of meddling relatives who interfere in their adult children’s love lives.

“Anyone But You” begins with the “meet cute” scene between the would-be couple at the center of the story. Beatrice “Bea” Messina (played by Sydney Sweeney), who’s in her mid-20s, says she’s a student in law school. Ben (played by Glen Powell), who’s in his mid-30s, has a background in finance and works as an online trader. Bea and Ben both live an unnamed U.S. city, where they meet at a local coffee shop.

Bea is in a hurry to be somewhere else when she goes into the coffee shop to use the restroom. She starts a conversation with an unfriendly barista (played by Mia Artemis), who abruptly tells her that the restroom is only for customers. Bea says she’ll buy something, but to her dismay, she sees that there’s a long line of customers.

Ben happens to be near the front of the line and notices Bea’s predicament because he overheard the conversation. All of sudden, Ben pretends that Bea is his wife, and he places her order for her. There’s an immediate attraction and rapport between Bea and Ben, as they play along at pretending to be spouses.

Bea excuses herself to use the restroom (which is a small room with one toilet) and calls her sister Halle (played by Hadley Robinson) to tell her about this attractive stranger she just met. Halle is also Bea’s best friend. As mentioned later in the movie, Bea met Ben when she was taking a break from her relationship with her fiancé Jonathan, whom she has known for years. Bea wanted this separation from Jonathan because she’s having doubts about getting married to anyone. Jonathan (played by Darren Barnet) doesn’t show up until the movie is half over.

Bea tells Halle that she could change her mind about dating someone new because she’s interested in getting to know Ben better. During this phone conversation in the restroom, Bea accidentally splashes a lot of sink water all over the front her jeans. This leads to a not-very-funny scene of Bea taking off her jeans and awkwardly using the hand dryer to get rid of the water stain, which could be misinterpreted as a urine stain.

Ben is patiently waiting for Bea outside, not knowing that flustered Bea is frantically trying to dry her jeans so she won’t give Ben the wrong impression about her hygiene. When she steps out of the bathroom, she doesn’t notice that a strand of toilet paper is stuck to the bottom of one of her shoes. Ben discreetly steps on the paper so it gets unstuck. All of this is supposed to be hilarious, but it’s just so boring.

Bea and Ben leave the coffee shop, which leads to a conversation where their mutual attraction to each other grows. Ben spontaneously invites Bea over to his place, where he makes grilled cheese sandwiches for both of them. They flirt some more and tell each other a little bit more about their lives. Bea says that even though she’s a law student, she’s not sure if she wants to become a lawyer.

Ben opens up to Bea and tells her about his most treasured possession: a giant wrench figurine given to him by his mother, who died an untold number of years ago. Ben’s father is not seen or mentioned in the movie. Bea and Ben spend the rest of the night talking. They fall asleep together on his couch.

When Bea wakes up, she thinks Ben is still asleep. She leaves without saying goodbye or leaving a note. However, Ben has noticed that Bea made a quick exit, and his feelings are hurt because he misinterprets it as Bea not being as interested in him as he’s interested in her.

Ben’s longtime best friend Pete (played by GaTa) shows up almost immediately after Bea leaves. He congratulates Ben on possibly finding a new love interest. Ben feels rejected by Bea, but his bruised ego won’t let him admit it to Pete. Instead, Ben lies to Pete to make it sound like Ben was the one who rejected Bea. “The girl is a disaster. I couldn’t get rid of her fast enough,” Ben tells Pete.

It just so happens that Bea has overheard Ben insult her in this part of the conversation, because (on the advice of Halle), Bea decided to go back to Ben’s place to make plans to see him again. Bea thinks that they had a magical night together, but she gets angry when she overhears through the open door what Ben is saying about her. Ben and Pete don’t see Bea eavesdropping and don’t find out until later that she has heard this part of the conversation.

Ben and Bea see each other again by chance at a nightclub when Bea is there with Halle and Halle’s new girlfriend Claudia (played by Alexandra Shipp), who just happens to be Pete’s younger sister. And lo and behold, all five of them are at this nightclub at the same time. The conversation becomes tense and uncomfortable when Bea and Ben start to snipe at each other and make it clear that they don’t want to see each other again.

Two years later, Halle and Claudia have gotten engaged and have planned a destination wedding to take place in Sydney, Australia, where Claudia’s parents live. All of their family members in the movie accept Halle and Claudia’s same-sex relationship. Claudia’s tactless father Roger (played by Bryan Brown) is a native Australian who is some type of business mogul. Roger is Pete’s stepfather; there’s no mention of where Pete’s biological father is. The mother of Pete and Claudia is Carol (played by Michelle Hurd), who likes to practice New Age healing techniques.

As for the parents of Bea and Halle, they are overbearing and worried that Bea might never get married. The sisters’ father Leo (played by Dermot Mulroney) and mother Innie (played by Rachel Griffiths) had their hearts set on Bea marrying Jonathan, because they think Jonathan would be the perfect husband for Bea. You can almost do a countdown to when Leo and Innie invite Jonathan to go to the wedding in Australia to be a “surprise” date for Bea. This plot development is already revealed in the trailer for “Anyone But You.”

In a conversation between Bea and Halle, the two sisters discuss how when they were children, Bea talked a lot about looking forward to being married, while Halle was very wary of marriage. And now, the sisters’ opinions of marriage have switched, with Bea now being the one who doesn’t have a desire to get married. Bea tells Halle that she’s happy for her and Claudia and completely supports their plans for marriage.

“Anyone But You” predictably shows Bea and Ben on the same plane flight to Australia and not being happy about it. More shenanigans ensue when Ben finds out that the Australian model-type ex-girlfriend who dumped him is also a wedding guest. Her name is Margaret (played by Charlee Fraser), and she is a cousin of Claudia and Pete. Margaret’s current boyfriend is a less-than-smart surfer named Beau (played by Joe Davidson), who talks in hokey Australian slang clichés that sound like what American screenwriters think Australian surfers sound like.

The rest of “Anyone But You” is a series of tiresome scenarios of friends and family members interfering with and being judgmental of the love lives of Bea and Ben. Bea and Ben then decide to pretend to be a couple (it was Bea’s idea), to get these intrusive people to back off, as well as to make Jonathan and Margaret jealous. Bea has no interest in getting back together with Jonathan, so she wants to look “unavailable.” Ben has lingering feelings for Margaret and hopes that if Margaret sees Ben and Bea as a couple, then Margaret might want to get back together with Ben.

“Anyone But You” over-relies on slapstick comedy with adults in various states of nudity or being in wet, clingy clothing. It’s supposed to be sexy and funny, but it just looks so fake and trying too hard. And when there’s an unimaginative romantic comedy that has a wedding as a major part of the story, you just know there’s going to be some kind of mishap involving the wedding cake.

Even more irritating: “Anyone But You” has some stupid scenes of characters attempting to manipulate what Bea and Ben do, by intentionally fabricating conversations that they want Bea and Ben to overhear. The story of this would-be couple is very unbalanced in the movie. Viewers learn a lot about Bea’s family and almost nothing about Ben’s family. What you will hear a lot of in the movie is Natasha Bedingfield’s 2004 hit “Unwritten,” which is put to very cloying use when cast members sing the song off-key at several points, including an end-credits montage.

Sweeney and Powell put in a fairly good effort in trying to be convincing as two people who’ve fallen in love on their first date and then spend most of their time together denying their true feelings. However, their comedic timing is often mismatched. Almost nothing in this movie is believable (including co-star chemistry that looks forced), and most of the movie’s characters are annoying. “Anyone But You” is ultimately a failed attempt to be a lovable romantic comedy. It’s only effective in being a showcase for how attractive locations can look with the right cinematography.

Columbia Pictures released “Anyone But You” in U.S. cinemas on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘Nocturne’ (2020), starring Sydney Sweeney, Madison Iseman, Jacques Colimon and Ivan Shaw

October 13, 2020

by Carla Hay

Sydney Sweeney in “Nocturne” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

“Nocturne” (2020)

Directed by Zu Quirke

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Nocturne” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and black people) representing the middle-class and upper-middle-class.

Culture Clash: An evil spirit affects the relationship between fraternal twin sisters who are rival classical pianists.

Culture Audience: “Nocturne” will appeal primarily to people who like teen-oriented horror stories that delivers scares that are effective but not particularly groundbreaking.

Madison Iseman and Sydney Sweeney in “Nocturne” (Photo by courtesy of Amazon Studios)

“Nocturne” takes an intense sibling rivalry, mixes it in with a lot well-worn occult tropes, and lets the results slowly seep over the audience like a sticky, poisonous stew that’s hard to clean off. The movie doesn’t do a lot that’s very innovative, but quality performances from the cast and the movie’s ability to maintain an unsettling tone throughout the story make it worth watching for people who want to see a teen horror story that isn’t a predictable slasher movie.

“Nocturne” is part of Blumhouse Television’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series partnership with Prime Video to showcase horror/thriller movies directed by women and people of color. It’s the feature-film debut by British writer/director Zu Quirke, who set “Nocturne” primarily in an elite American arts school called the Lindbergh Academy. The academy, which is in an unnamed city, is also a co-ed boarding school that’s attended by students from mostly well-to-do families. It’s a school that steeped in tradition and classical music. In other words, the school isn’t for wannabe rock stars and wannabe rappers.

Many of the students have ambitions to become professional musicians in prominent orchestras or as solo stars. Such is the case with fraternal twin sisters Vivian “Vi” Lowe (played by Madison Iseman) and Juliet “Julie” Lowe (played by Sydney Sweeney), who are aspiring classical pianists. Even though their parents David (played by Brandon Keener) and Cassie (played by Julie Benz) are supportive of the twins’ dreams, they also warn Vi (pronounced “vee” in the movie) and Julie that the chances are very slim that they can make a career out of being classical pianists.

There’s a rivalry between the sisters that has been simmering for years but boils over with dangerous intensity during the course of the story, which takes place in the last year that the twins are enrolled in the academy before they graduate. Vi, the older twin, is the “golden child” who excels at everything thing she does. She’s been accepted into the prestigious Juilliard School, while Julie has been rejected by Juilliard and has decided to take a “gap year” before she applies again to Juilliard.

Vi has a loving and attentive boyfriend named Max (played by Jacques Colimon), who’s a little bit of a rebel because he does illegal drugs when he parties, and he admits that he only wants to be a musician because he likes the attention that he gets from women. Vi and Max’s relationship seems to be going well, and Vi is considered a “star” student of the school, both academically and socially. By contrast, Julie is a loner who doesn’t date and is a student who’s hard-working but not considered as exceptional as Vi. It’s no wonder that Julie feels overshadowed and jealous of Vi.

Lindbergh Academy has recently been devastated by the suicide of another star student named Moira Wilson (played by Ji Eun Hwang), a violinist who jumped off of the ledge of one of the school’s buildings. The suicide (which is shown in the beginning of the movie) is shocking because Moira had a promising future and wasn’t considered to be a troubled kid. During a school assembly after the suicide, Lindberg Academy administrators announce that the annual senior competition recital, which is the school’s biggest event, will still go ahead as planned.

One day, while a school administrator is cleaning out Moira’s locker, one of Moira’s notebooks accidentally drops on the ground. Julie happens to be nearby and picks up the notebook. She sees many occult-like illustrations and musical compositions in the notebook. And there’s a strange symbol of the sun on the notebook’s cover. This sun symbol plays a big role in many other parts of the story.

After Julie finds and keeps the notebook, mysterious things start to happen. When she’s in a room that’s used for music practice, she hears a violin playing, but no one is there. She starts having hallucinations and blackouts. Julie is on anti-anxiety medication, but is what she experiencing the side effects of the drug, mental illness, or is it something else? This is a horror movie, so the answer is obvious.

Moira’s notebook seems to have other effects on Julie, as she becomes more arrogant and ruthless in her rivalry with Vi. Julie decides that she’s going to play the same composition that Vi chose for the senior competition recital: Giuseppe Tartini’s “The Devil’s Trill.” Vi is understandably furious with Julie for blatantly trying to copy her, so the feud escalates between the two sisters.

Julie’s one-on-one piano instructor is a middle-aged alcoholic named Roger (played by John Rothman), who used to be an important pianist, but it’s implied that his drinking problem ruined his career as a pianist, and now his job is teaching piano to teenage students. Roger’s alcoholism is still an issue, because Julie mentions during their teaching lessons that she can smell alcohol on his breath.

One day, Julie (who is constantly looking for approval) asks Roger, “Are you proud of me?” He tries to tactfully tell Julie that she’s a good student but doesn’t really have what it takes to be a star soloist. Roger says that Julie is a “sensitive accompanist” and that not everyone can be the conductor of an orchestra.

This “damning with faint praise” triggers some anger in Julie, because she then tells Roger that she wants to quit his class. It leads to an argument where something happens that gets Roger fired. Julie is then assigned to take piano lessons from Dr. Cask (played by Ivan Shaw), who’s considered one of the top instructors in the school because he will only teach the best students. Dr. Cask, who is handsome and distinguished-looking, is also in charge of the senior competition recital, which is judged by a panel of school officials.

“Nocturne” is far from subtle in telegraphing what’s behind the horror in this story. Moira’s notebook is filled with demonic drawings. And when Dr. Cask has a piano lesson with Julie, he comments to her about Vi: “You know what makes her a star? She plays like the devil’s at her door.” And he says of dead student Moira: “She played like the devil is in the room.”

There aren’t many “jump scares” in “Nocturne.” Instead, the horror is more gradual and starts to slowly ramp up as the story moves along. It’s easy to figure out what the source of the terror is, but the appeal to the story is to see how this evil presence is going to affect the relationship between these two sisters.

The movie is told from Julie’s perspective, so Sweeney is the main actor who has to carry the story. Her performance is good, but just like her Julie character, she’s not particularly outstanding. Vi is not as complex as Julie, but Iseman capably shows glimmers into Vi’s interior thoughts that don’t always line up with the “perfect student” image that Vi portrays to almost everyone around her.

The best aspects of “Nocturne” are how writer/director Quirke successfully evokes moods such as toxic jealousy and eerie foreboding in the realistic dialogue and increasingly suffocating environment that surrounds Julie and Vi. The movie’s cinematography from Carmen Cabana also persuasively immerses people into this world. “Nocturne” delivers a knockout ending that will make people wonder if certain people can be possessed by evil or if evil is a manifestation of wicked inclinations that people already have inside themselves.

Prime Video premiered “Nocturne” on October 13, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Clementine’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Clementine”

Directed by Laura Jean Gallagher

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27, 2019.

“Clementine,” the first feature film from writer/director Lara Jean Gallagher, is a slow burn of a drama that is more of a psychological portrait than a psychological thriller. No one in the movie is named Clementine; the movie’s title comes from what clementine oranges mean to the central characters Karen (played by Otmara Marrero) and Lana (played by Sydney Sweeney). You’ll have to see the movie to find out how clementine oranges are mentioned, but we’re first introduced to Karen at the beginning of the film, when she breaks into a remote Oregon lake house owned by her older ex-girlfriend. The Karen character is supposed to be 29, but Marrero looks and acts much younger than a typical 29-year-old.

When there is a movie that takes place primarily in a secluded lake house in the woods, all sorts of sinister things usually ensue. But in the case of “Clementine,” don’t expect there to be any mysterious killer on the loose. Instead, the movie plays guessing games about who is trustworthy when it comes to matters of the heart.

It’s apparent early on that Karen’s breakup with her ex-girlfriend is recent and painful, because she broke into the house with the intent of taking back a dog without her ex-girlfriend’s knowledge. It’s unclear if Karen has rightful custody of the dog, but what is clear is that Karen feels that she deserves to have custody. When she finds out that the dog isn’t at the house, she decides to stay while she contemplates her next move. The only thing that viewers know about the ex-girlfriend, who’s named “D” (and is played in a cameo by Sonya Walger), is that “D” is a busy career woman who’s broken Karen’s heart, and Karen knows enough about her schedule to know when “D” won’t be at the lake house.

One evening, a teenager named Lana shows up at the house and asks Karen to help her look for her lost dog. Karen is a little reluctant to help at first, but she agrees, even though the sun is going down and it will soon get dark outside. They get in Karen’s car to search, and as the night wears on, they still haven’t found the dog. Karen’s skepticism grows, while she’s aware that she’s becoming sexually attracted to the mysterious Lana, who says she’s 19 and living with a boyfriend not too far from the lake house. Just when Karen is about to end the search because she thinks she’s being conned, Lana finds the dog, and Karen lets her guard down because she thinks Lana might be an honest person after all.

It isn’t long before they exchange phone numbers, and Karen invites Lana over for a late-night visit. Lana opens up to Karen and says she’s an aspiring actress, and the boyfriend she lives with is neglectful and someone who might be emotionally abusive. At first, Karen pretends that she lives in the lake house, but Lana quickly figures out the truth when Karen’s ex-girlfriend “D” unexpectedly calls on the house phone. It’s clear that the movie wants us to see that Karen projects a lot of her own experiences onto Lana as a way to bond with her: the idea of being seduced by an older woman, having unfulfilled dreams, and even searching for a beloved dog.

As Karen and Lana spend more time together at the house, Lana gives Karen subtle hints that she’s attracted to her, and Karen tries to decide if she’s going to initiate a romantic relationship with Lana. One day, the sexual tension between the two gets even more complicated when a young man aptly named Beau (played by Will Brittain), who does yard work and other maintenance for the house, shows up to do some work, and he openly flirts with Lana. Much to Karen’s dismay, Lana flirts back with Beau. Sensing Karen’s jealousy, Lana flirts with Beau even more whenever Karen is around.

All of this might turn into a suspenseful love triangle, but the movie takes somewhat of a ridiculous turn in the last 20 minutes when Karen commits an act of revenge that’s straight out of a Lifetime movie. The motivations for her to commit such a risky act don’t ring true, considering viewers know at that point in the movie if Karen and Lana have a future as a couple.

Marrero gives a solid performance as someone having inner morality conflicts over getting romantically involved with a teenager (even if the teen says she’s over the legal age of consent), but Sweeney has to carry the heavier acting load as someone who may or may not be a manipulative Lolita type. Unfortunately, the teen seductress role has been done so many times before in better-written movies that Sweeney often falls short of the challenge to create a fascinating and memorable character. The Lana character is certainly capable of inspiring lust, but Sweeney’s portrayal of Lana lacks the necessary charm that would make it believable that Lana would inspire true love. By the time secrets are revealed in the movie, the ending of “Clementine” is so anti-climactic that people won’t care much about what happens to the characters after the movie ends.

UPDATE: Oscilloscope Laboratories will release “Clementine” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on May 8, 2020. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is July 14, 2020.